Tuesday, 14 April 2015

TweetI’m not sure
that last week’s exchange of exposés of what two candidates in Ceredigion have
written in the past tells us much more than (a) that politicians can be much
too quick off the mark in responding to headlines and tweets without bothering
to check the detail, and (b) that some of them don’t really care about the
truth; they just know that mud sticks.Personally, I think that there’s far too much concentration on all sides
on views held or expressed in the past, when what really matters is what the
individuals really think now.

The underlying
issue, about racism in Wales, is a serious one, and simply exchanging insults
doesn’t help to address that issue.From
personal experience, I can say that I have certainly met with racist views on
the doorstep over the years.I can
remember one gentleman from the English Midlands, living in a rural village
where most of the residents spoke daily a language which was incomprehensible
to him, telling me that they’d moved there “…to
be amongst our own people”.Not
exactly an outright expression of racism but the meaning was clear, even if the
irony was completely lost on him.And I’m
certain that anyone who claims not to have encountered such an attitude on the
doorstep in rural Wales has either not done very much canvassing or else not
listened to what was being said.

What’s harder
to judge is how typical it is, and the extent to which one can generalise.Whilst it’s certainly true that for every
individual who expresses a particular view there will be many more who hold the
same view and just don’t express it so openly, it’s also true that some
doorstep conversations make a deeper impression than others.It’s all too easy to extrapolate from a few
egregious examples and leap to a conclusion that a view is more common amongst
a particular section of the population than is actually the case.

So, for the
sake of balance, let me add that, over the years, I also met many English
in-migrants who held a much more liberal view on race, and who made huge efforts
to integrate with the local Welsh-speaking communities – and I met more than a
few racist Welsh voters as well.Racism
is a problem; and in tackling it, it would be a good idea not to start with an
assumption that it’s restricted to, or particularly prevalent in, any
particular demographic.

In discussing
the issue, then of course there’s a need to choose words carefully; but there’s
something very wrong with political discussion which focuses more on the words
chosen to discuss the issue than on the issue itself.It’s symptomatic of a sound bite and froth
attitude to politics; an approach which the way in which some politicians use
social media seems only to reinforce.